Encounters
by Shaggley
Summary: Two woman meet on a train, and they discover to have something in common: they have both spent weeks searching for two very particular girls. One of these girls is Kim Possible. But who could the other one be? - Dedicated to Theodore Sturgeon.
1. Encounters  Part One

_**Author's Note:** I wrote this out of desperation a couple of days ago, when "my" Parliament was working on a law that could have caused every blog and site hosted in Italy to close or risking to pay a 12.000 euro (16.000$) fee._

_I could have been forced to shut down my own blog, and watch the end of free information on the Iternet in Italy; so, among other things, I was an itty bitty depressed, and I thought about an heartening story. Writing as therapy and all that.  
Fortunately, the law was changed, but the story remained._

_A particular story; more gossip about it when will be finished... then you will be able to say me if I did a big mistake writing it, or not._  
_As always,_

Buona Lettura.

* * *

_This story is dedicated to Theodore Sturgeon. _

* * *

**Encounters.**

_A Kim Possible fanfiction by Shaggley _

When the speaker of the train announced the departure from Civitavecchia with a strange Frank Sinatra-like voice, the thing was so amusing it managed to elicit from her the first laugh in weeks.  
There was still about an hour of train before reaching Rome, and she was looking forward for it; gazing on the open country outside the window, she let the ghosts of the laugh fading away, and she didn't see the other passenger until she was before her.

It was a young woman with brown hairs and turquoise eyes, slender and with dark clothes; she smiled.

"Hi. Can I take this seat?"

She waited a little; she had put her luggage on the seat before her in order to not being disturbed. She took another glance at the young woman... actually, a girl. She shrugged.

"Suit yourself."

The girl smiled, looking a little embarassed by her cold manners; slowly, she took her luggage and passed it to her, letting it hanging from her hands. With a sigh, she pointed to the plastic shelf a couple of inches above her head; the girl complied with an awkward smile and put carefully the paper bags on the shelf, before accommodating her own. She then let herself fall on the blue seat, her legs crossed, and looked outside of the window for a couple of minutes.

"How did you know I talked English?"

The girl looked away from the window and set her turquoise eyes on the woman's black ones; she glanced on the bottom right with her eyes, a gesture that looked immediately like a signature.

"I didn't. I actually travel a lot, but never had the time to learn another language but my own. I just talk in English. And here it has been... awkward from time to time."

She was amused by the girl's shyness; two times in less than a minute, it looked like a new record, at least looking at the last months.

"So, it's much you are in Italy?"

She waited for the girl's response putting her chin on her left finger, reclining her head back; then she passed her hand on her chin-lenght hair, the dark curls moving between her fingers. Another habitual gesture.

"It's not much. A couple of months. I visited all the major cities, starting from the north..."

The girl stuck out her fingers, counting.

"I have been in Turin, Milan, Venice, Verona, Padua... then Bologna and Genoa. Then I headed for Tuscany, and visited Pisa and Florence. The next obvious step is Rome, but I took a glance at Civitavecchia, just in case."

The woman smirked.

"That's a long journey for a young thing like you. It almost looks like you are following a trail."

The girl blushed even more; she looked outside the window for a moment or two; then she sighed and let her eyes bathe in the late afternoon' sun.

"Actually, I am. I'm searching for a friend of mine, but she disappeared."

She passed again her hand in her dark hairs, closing her eyes for a moment.

"Don't say."

The girl nodded, putting her arms in her lap, and looking again at the woman before her, who still had her eyes closed.

"I do. The only thing I know, she left her home, abandoned her family and friends, and then headed for Italy about ten weeks ago; I had been searching for her since then."

The woman arched an eyebrow and opened her eyes again; she looked incredulous.

"Why, if this one is your friend so much..."

She waved her free hand.

"I know, I know. But she's the type that if she don't like to be found, it will be very difficult to spot her." The girl brushed together her hands. "You know, this friend of mine... she's Kim Possible."

The woman raised her other eyebrow, and her smirk grew wider.

"That teenage hero? You are trying to make a fool of me."

The girl brushed again her hands, but raised her eyes and into those turquoise circles she saw a determination that baffled her.

"I'm not."

She waved her hand.

"Then come on. How do you know this hero girl?"

"I was... her schoolmate. We where together at Middleton High."

The woman moved her finger under her chin.

"Middleton... isn't a city of some sort in the States?"

The girl nodded.

"We where together for... a lot of time. I thought I knew her well, better than anyone else. Better than her parents, better than her boyfriend."

The woman held out a hand.

"Wait. This girl actually has a boyfriend? And why isn't he here in you place, searchin' for his dream girl? I mean, if I were involved with Kim Possible..." and then she waved her hand again, like to say 'what a moron'.

The girl smiled at that comment; but it was a sad smile.

"Yes, she had a boyfriend. But they broke up a couple of months ago, just before she disappeared. I would have never thought that she would lost herself like she did after that. It was sad, it was bad, surely, but I thought she was stronger than that. It seems I was wrong."

"Who knows? Maybe she still had other problems other than her boyfriend."

The girl started fidgeting with her fingers.

"Yes, she did. She suffered a... major emotional meltdown the year before. It happened during the Lil'Diablo crisis..."

"Ah! I remember that! Even _I_had one of those things!"

The girl smiled.

"Who didn't? Anyway, she had this meltdown, you understand? She did something she never did, and even if afterward she felt guilty about that, she never actually get over it."

She sighed.

"So, she started to brush it off with cheerleader practice, trying to improve and improve again, and showing off her bitch side, trying to get attention and more attention. She never thought that there could be someone there for her, if only she opened up with her problems and her repressed anger."

The woman took another strand of hair into her fingers; she closed her eyes again, listening to the young girl's speech.

"She was just too stubborn to admit that something could be wrong with her, that she could be making a mistake to not trying to stop and see _what_was wrong and why she did what she did during the accident."

The woman still listened, her eyes closed in concentration.

"And doing so, she didn't see her hunger for social approval, she didn't look at her flaws, at her anger, at her will to be on the top every time, she... lost the only person who actually cared for her, the only person who could have given her answers."

She clenched her fists.  
The woman opened her eyes, and pointed her finger to the girl.

"Her boyfriend, you say."

"No, that came later, and he's not the person I'm talking about. The breakout was more of a consequence than an actual reason. And that's why I'm the one looking for her, and not him."

The woman closed her hand and her eyes again.  
She looked like she was thinking about something; the girl, after a couple of minutes waiting for a response, started looking outside the window, enjoying the sun's rays caressing the outlines of houses and the Italian coast in what was rapidly becoming evening.  
The sun's light had become a lot redder before the woman started speaking again.

"You know? That's funny, because I'm here searching for someone too."

The girl looked back at her; she stood silent, motionless for an instant.

"Who... who is?"

"She also was an old friend of mine, living not far from you. We where in Go City High together, but unlike you, I lost her a lot of years ago, when she left her family behind her."

She sighed.

"She was the smartest and most beautiful girl in the school. Drop dead sexy. She was witty, funny and willful, the most popular gal, head cheerleader and all that. Too bad she couldn't get past her stubbornness; when she... suffered an accident, like your Kim did, she started to want it all back, even if she couldn't, for various reasons. She had become... violent, dangerous even. An outcast. She tried, and tried hard to be accepted back, but just collected refusal after refusal."

She paused for a moment, taking her time to look into the girl's deep blue-green eyes, and soothing with her gaze her brown hairs. The girl said nothing, but she was motionless, looking at her like hypnotized.

"Things got worse. Her anger at what was took from her grew day after day, and when it grew past her ability to withstand it, she started to spread it on those around her. Her family, in particular; and then, when she realized that everything she could do, even helping others just for doing good wasn't doing _her_any good, she... quit."

She passed again her hand between her hairs.

"She left her family and came on the wild side, a place when her... skills let her feel more at home than she ever felt since before her accident. And things were good, for a while."

She let out a sigh coming out again. The woman was visibly having difficulties talking about this, so the girl had the respect to wait for her to catch her breath; even if the sun outside had started to set, colouring the sky into an intense shade of red, she didn't took her gaze off the woman.

"It was then that I lost her. I lost her for six years, and I almost forget about her. You know, sometimes job really can get under your skin and change you. It drives you to utter boredom, idiotic bosses, and related risks. Unless... unless something changes, that it is. Sp, when I knew she was quitting again, and she was leaving the USA, I took the first plane and went on her tracks."

She smiled.

"Unlike you, I knew that she likes beaches and sun the most; so I started by the Sicily and Palermo. I followed her traces on all the southern Italy; I went to Sardinia, even. Then I took a ship to come back on the continent a couple of hours ago, and bought a ticket from Civitavecchia to Rome. And here I am."

The girl waited for the woman to continue, but passed several minutes before she understood that she had no intention to go on; the sky was even reddish now. It couldn't be more than half an hour before the train would stop.  
The girl then opened her mouth again, her voice low.

"And this girl you are searching for... what's her name?"

* * *

_So, what do you think?  
I'd like to hear your opinions - or your pitches and forks, just in case. _


	2. Encounters  Part Two

We're back.  
See you at the end.

_Buona Lettura._

Let me know what do you think about it.

* * *

**Encounters.**

_A Kim Possible fanfiction by Shaggley_

_Part 2_

* * *

The woman stood still for a moment, like thinking how to answer that question; then she spoke slowly, weighing each letter.

"Angela."

The girl opened her mouth slightly, and pierced her gaze into that of the woman; she remained like this for a couple of minutes, before nictitating and letting her mouth opening in a strange smile, half sad, half surprised.

"I understand."

They remained silent for still more minutes, while the reddish colour of the sky shaded darker and the light became more and more dim, and the outlines of houses became those of apartment blocks and churches. They were approaching the downtown of Rome.

It was the girl who started talking again, this time.

"Well... you shouldn't be so hard with your friend, you know. She surely suffered a lot for quitting with her family. And maybe even... more so, if she resigned from the work she wanted so hard to achieve. Maybe it wasn't entirely her fault, you know."

The woman chuckled.

"Don't say. No, she was just too stupid to understand who she was losing, and too afraid to see again the events that took _her_down happening to another person. She fled, like she had always done."

"Maybe she fled because she didn't feel understood and cared. Maybe people around her where taking her for granted."

The woman narrowed her eyes, more in interest to this new point of view than annoying.

"What are you saying?"

The girl shuddered, her cheeks a little flushed in the setting sun's light.

"It's... it's like what happened with Kim. She thought that everything in her life was granted, even her friends, even her boyfriend. She thought that she hadn't to win them day after day, that they will always be there for her, no matter what."

"It's normal."

Commented the woman, again putting her head on her finger.

"It' unjust. She thought that just because she knew better she _was_better. And being better came with don't asking herself questions, painful questions about who she really was, what she really wanted. And that day, the day of the Lil' Diablo accident, she took the easy way."

She paused.

"She tried to murder the one who was causing her so many question; she tried to murder her future. Or, at least, one possible future."

She paused again, hands opened on her lap, her gaze lost.

"And when she tried to... reconcile with that future, she just couldn't get past what she had tried to do and wha... who she had become in the process, what she had discovered about herself, and the reaction of... other to it. Can you forgive something like that? Because surely I cannot."

She sighed.  
The woman stood silent for a second, then, moving slowly, put one of her hands on the girl's knuckle.

"In time, yes. And if this friend will be wise and mature enough to say this to you by her own will, you will know that she had understood it already."

The girl locked her aquamarine gaze into the older woman's black one.

"She was just a spoiled brat."

The woman nodded, smiling slightly.

"She sure was. I bet she was as annoying as hell. But I can say she was good enough to come here to search for her. I wouldn't have done anything different."

She paused a little, and bowed her head.

"Even if... Angela maybe is not worth it."

"She is."

The girl responded. She had took the hand the woman had put on her knuckle into her own.

"When you flee, like your friend did, it means that no one actually stood there really caring for you; that no one was actually able to show you how much really you were their centre, their foundation of strength, and that when you fled it was for their fault, not just yours."

The girl started to shake the woman's wrist, when the light of the sun was disappearing and the train was entering in the actual city, just a couple of kilometers from stopping in its tracks.  
The woman shook her head, her eyes redder and redder as the sky was becoming grayer and grayer.

"She was just too stubborn and stupid to ask... to ask how someone could feel, and she couldn't help anyway. She's lost. She fled, and didn't nothing but that."

The girl's grip on the woman's wrist got stronger.

"She didn't flee: right now, right here, she didn't flee. When she could, she didn't flee. And if she had been able to... to..."

The girl's hand were shaking now.

"...to forgive me for wanting to kill her, I can forgive you for fleeing!"

The woman opened her eyes wide, letting the tears flowing freely.

"I... don't..."

"I want to try again! I want to come back together and this time I want to let the world know! I want to see Ron's face and I want to see the shock in my mother's eyes and I want to see my dad faint and I want to see my head on newspaper screaming things like 'Kim Possible, the Teenage Lesbian Hero'... " she gulped, the emotions clashing together in her throat.

The train started slowing down.

"... I want to see you when you wake in the morning. I want you to be the very last thing I see when I fall asleep. I want you to hold my hands in the evening and I want to repeat at your remarks and I want you to start again calling me Princess and Cupcake and Pumpkin, and I want the world knowing it, and I want you to show me the way, because sure as hell I cannot walk that path by myself!"

The woman stood silent again, dumbstruck. Then she slowly came closer and freed her hands, putting them on the girl's shoulder; she shifted them on her back and closed the girl in a tight embrace.

"I'm. Sorry. I'm sorry."  
Cringed the girl said between shudders.

The girl returned the embrace, passing her hands on the other's back. She started smiling behind a veil of tears; she raised he head and put her nose on the other woman's.

"I am too."

There was the noise of the train's brakes starting to moan over the tracks, the rustling of passengers grabbing their luggage. The girl asked again, her voice broken.

"Can... can we start it all over again? No more secrets, No more hiding. I promise."

She passed her thumb over the woman's cheek, cleaning layers of foundation in a single move, and showing the pale green skin beneath.

The speaker announced their arrival at Roma Termini, still in that Frank Sinatra-like voice; both women chuckled at the funny tone, shudders of sorrow confusing with spasms of amusement and joy, their lips curled, their eyes watering.

The woman closed her eyes again; this time, it was in bliss.

"No more hiding."

And with those words,the train stopped; Shego took Kim's head into her hands, and put her lips on hers.

* * *

And that's the end.

But even if it's the end of this story, there's still something I want to show you - next chapter, guys.

Really hope you liked it - if you did, please let me know.  
And if you didn't and want to show why, definitely let me know.

_A presto. _


	3. Encounters  The Making Of

**- Encounters -**

**The Making Of**

* * *

Ok, I think it's time to show you what this story was about.

I started thinking about it a couple of weeks ago, when I was in a very depressed mood; I was in the throes of a very bad period I'm starting to come out only in the last days.

Usually, when I'm sad, I listen to a little music, and I read something.  
In this case, I read Theodore Sturgeon (the first book of short stories), and I remembered about a story in that book, one I didn't read in years but that had a strong impact on me.

_Strangers on a Train._

Methinks that you are starting to understand, don't you?

That story was about two people who met on a train, who talked about their past relationships, and finally they decided to give them another try, showing to be husband and wife, just separated and willing to come back together.  
So, I started to think about that story - and how it had haunted me in the past years.  
From time to time, when I started writing, I felt it scratching at the corners of my head, asking for caring.

And I wrote a KiGo version of it.  
The setting, the premise, the camouflage (in an original story, describing the characters appeareance doesn't make them recognizable - in a fanfic, it does. So I had to invent something about that) and the use of PoV (the story by Sturgeon had a neutral/external PoV, while I used the PoV of Shego and Kim), though, those are mine.

So, now the ball it's in your court, readers.  
Was using an idea of my favorite writer and writing a story from it worth it?

Does this mean that I'm an horrible author?

Or just that I've done a square fanfiction (a fanfiction of a fanfiction)?

Please answer me, even if you would read this a year from now, or two, or five.

* * *

Let me just say you one thing.

Since I've completed this story, _Strangers on a Train_ haunts me no more.


End file.
